{"id":16999,"date":"2017-06-23T19:12:01","date_gmt":"2017-06-24T02:12:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/?p=16999"},"modified":"2017-06-23T19:12:01","modified_gmt":"2017-06-24T02:12:01","slug":"protect-the-child-satyarthi-tells-modi-and-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siliconeer.com\/current\/protect-the-child-satyarthi-tells-modi-and-trump\/","title":{"rendered":"Protect the Child, Satyarthi Tells Modi and Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bachpan Bachao Andolan founder Kailash Satyarthi speaks, Sept. 18, 2016, in New York City.\u00a0 (Riccardo Savi\/Getty Images for International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity)<\/em><\/p>\n

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\u201cTo stop illegal migration, a country can build a wall but no wall can stop hot winds or polluted air,\u201d says Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi, who urged Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Donald Trump to send out a strong message against child labor and promote child education so that children can be prevented from entering the \u2018world of extremism,\u2019 June 21, writes Lalit K. Jha.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u201cThey can definitely come with a strong statement for investing in children and development. That means education, health, and protection of children everywhere in the world. Not only in these two countries,\u201d Satyarthi, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, told PTI in an interview.<\/p>\n

The founder of \u2018Bachpan Bachao Andolan,\u2019 a grassroots movement dedicated to the protection of children and ensuring them education, said the two leaders \u2013 who are set to meet here on June 26 \u2013 can send a \u201cmessage to the rest of the world that these two largest democracies care for their children and their most marginalized people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 63-year-old activist, who is in America to meet child rights groups, said the U.S. and India can send the message that \u201cwe are holding your hands, my dear children, … so you don\u2019t enter (the world of extremism).\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat will help, not immediately, but in coming years it will help in protecting children if it comes again and again from these two countries or, maybe, many more. It\u2019s a matter of leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n

Born in Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh, the son of a police officer, Satyarthi studied electrical engineering and went on to become the seventh Indian to win the Nobel prize.<\/p>\n

In his more than 30 years as an activist, he has freed tens of thousands of children forced into slavery. He founded the \u2018Andolan\u2019 in 1980 and began raiding factories where children were forced to work, in some cases by their parents who cannot afford to raise them.<\/p>\n

According to the movement\u2019s website, it has rescued over 83,500 victims of trafficking, slavery and child labor as on October 2014, and helped them re-establish trust in society.<\/p>\n

The Nobel laureate said if India and the U.S. showed the leadership, many others would follow. \u201cThey can also give a call that we have to hold hands of young people across the world to prevent them from entering those evil forces,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Satyarthi said it was important that the U.S. and India understand the growing problems in the world that includes terrorism, extremism as well as global economy crisis and unemployment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are government problems. Since we are among the most vibrant and most effective and the largest democracies, it becomes our collective responsibility to show the leadership to the rest of the world that we don\u2019t care only for ourselves but we care for the rest of the world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope that both the leaders will show the leadership again as we have been talking that these two countries are natural partners to preserve democracy in the world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Satyarthi said the U.S. is not untouched by the grave issue of child labor and child marriage. \u201cThis is a serious problem here in the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have come across, and I met, and there were partner organizations have rescued children who were local. They were white Americans. It\u2019s a combination of all but definitely because of the West Coast situation most of them are Hispanics,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are getting more and more alarming news, and disgusting also, about the problem of early marriages, child marriages and teenage pregnancies in the United States. Except a few states, most states don\u2019t have a very clear well-defined minimum age of marriage,\u201d he said and urged the U.S. government to make necessary changes in the law in this regard.<\/p>\n

Satyarthi also urged Trump to reconsider his decision to withdraw from the historic Paris Climate Change Accord.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would once again make an honest appeal to President Trump to reconsider his decision on Paris Accord. Climate change and global warming is creating devastating effects on children in most parts of the world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201c(The leaders) know how due to global warming, the traditional livelihood of the parents have been ruined and the children became vulnerable to traffickers… We have also seen an increase in unemployment among adults, the migration crisis, social tension and violence, and trafficking, and child labor. Children are unable to complete their schools,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo stop illegal migration, a country can build a wall but no wall can stop hot winds or polluted air,\u201d Satyarthi concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bachpan Bachao Andolan founder Kailash Satyarthi speaks, Sept. 18, 2016, in New York City.\u00a0 (Riccardo Savi\/Getty Images for International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity) \u201cTo stop illegal migration, a country can build a wall but no wall can stop hot winds or polluted air,\u201d says Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi, who urged Indian Prime Minister…<\/p>\n

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